"The fact that it took five months for this to get caught shows the problem: There could have been anything there," said Weinberg. "Whoever stuck in that photo could have stuck in [anything], and Microsoft will probably feel the need to go with overkill to prevent that ever happening."

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
-Thomas Jefferson

"The photo is only one of multiple images contained in the hologram design, all of whose inclusion serves to make it more difficult to replicate a Windows Vista DVD." The three men in the photo, said White, are members of Microsoft's antipiracy team who worked on the Vista holograms. Other images on the disc -- Kwisatz said he had found three others, but couldn't make out details -- are art masterpieces in the public domain, added White.

"These security measures were never intended to be impossible to find, but rather difficult to reproduce," said White.